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Exploring Crop Genomes, Advancing Crop Improvement - Patrick Schnable
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Patrick Schnable is the associate director of the Plant Sciences Institute, director of the Center for Plant Genomics, and director of the newly formed Center for Carbon Capturing Crops. He joined the Iowa State faculty in 1988 and is currently Baker Professor of Agronomy, holding appointments in the Departments of Agronomy and Genetics, Development and Cell Biology. He manages a research program that emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to understanding plant biology. Schnable is a participant in the NSF-funded maize genome sequencing project and is chair of the international maize genetics executive committee. He recently helped write the first draft of the corn genome sequence, announced at the 50th Annual Maize Genetics Conference. Understanding the corn genome could help scientists improve corn plants so they withstand global climate change, add nutritional value to grain, sequester more atmospheric carbon in agricultural soils, and boost yields. Schnable received his B.S. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from Iowa State University and conducted post-doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The Spring 2008 University Presidential Lecture. A reception and display of student research will precede the lecture at 7:00 p.m. in the South Ballroom.

The Anatomy of Prejudice - Jane Elliott
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Jane Elliott, the adaptor of the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes exercise, will lead a three-hour presentation teaching about the anatomy of prejudice. The Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes exercise, which she developed in her Riceville, Iowa, classroom, was the subject of the Peabody Award-winning documentary "The Eye of the Storm" and the follow-up PBS/FRONTLINE production "A Class Divided." She will show clips and discuss that film and explore with the audience the problems of racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and ethnocentrism, and ways to eliminate them from ourselves and our environment.

Science, Policies and Food in Today's Market - A Dialogue with Whole Foods Market's Walter Robb and Stonyfield Farm's Gary Hirshberg
5:10 PM – Curtiss Hall Auditorium - Walter Robb is Co-President & Chief Operating Officer of Whole Foods Market, Inc., the world's leading retailer of natural and organic foods, with more than 270 stores in North America and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods Market was founded in 1978 and is based in Austin, Texas. The company - whose offerings include everything from meats and produce to vitamins and body care to pet and household products - is dedicated to stringent quality standards and committed to sustainable agriculture. Gary Hirshberg is President and CEO of Stonyfield Farm, the world's leading organic yogurt producer, based in Londonderry, New Hampshire. For the past twenty-five years, Hirshberg has overseen Stonyfield Farm's growth from a seven-cow organic farming school to its current $260 million in annual sales. In 2001 Stonyfield Farm entered into a partnership with Groupe Danone, and in 2005 Hirshberg was named Managing Director of Stonyfield Europe, a joint venture between the two firms with brands in Ireland, the UK and France.

Providing the World's Energy: Problems and Solutions - Graham R. Fleming
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Graham R. Fleming is a professor of chemistry and Deputy Laboratory Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has been at the forefront of a major revolution in the biophysical sciences, leading investigations into ultrafast chemical and biological processes, in particular, the primary steps of photosynthesis. Fleming earned his Bachelor's of Science degree from the University of Bristol and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of London. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Melbourne, Australia, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1979. There, he rose through the academic ranks to become the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor. His ultimate goal is to develop artificial photosynthesis that would provide humanity with clean, efficient and sustainable energy. The 2008 Presidential Lecture in Chemistry.

SPRING BREAK
8:00 AM – No events planned - No events planned the week of March 17-21.

Man Killed by Pheasant - John Price
3:10 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - John Price is the author of Not Just Any Land: A Personal and Literary Journey into the American Grasslands and recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He will be discussing his new book Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships. His essays have appeared in Orion, Christian Science Monitor, Creative Nonfiction, The Best Spiritual Writing 2000 (Harper), In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal (Norton), Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing, Organization and Environment, and Healing: 20 Prominent Authors Write About Inspirational Moments of Achieving Health and Gaining Insight (Tarcher/Putnam). John Price is an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He holds a PhD in English and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa.

Hospitality Under the Influence - Amy Sedaris
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Amy Sedaris is best known for her role as Jerri Blank in the television series and 2006 movie adaptation of Strangers with Candy, and, most recently, for sharing her domestic skills in the satirical guide to entertaining I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. Sedaris has appeared in the movies Elf, School of Rock, Maid in Manhattan, the film version of Bewitched and on television in Rescue Me, Monk, Just Shoot Me! Sex and the City, and in My Name Is Earl. She also made a guest appearance on Sesame Street as a flustered Snow White who keeps losing her dwarves. With her brother, author and essayist David Sedaris, Amy has coauthored several plays. She also coauthored the text-and-picture novel Wigfield with Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert, her coauthors for Strangers with Candy. Part of the National Affairs Series: Can Laughter Save America?

A Celebration of Women in the History of Iowa State University - Amy Bix
12:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Amy Bix is an associate professor of history at Iowa State and codirector of the History of Science and Technology Program. She has published on such topics as the history of women in the field of eugenics and the history of funding for breast cancer and AIDS. Her current project focuses on the history of engineering education for American women, examining how, when and why universities of science and technology, such as Iowa State, began admitting women to engineering programs. Bix received her Ph.D. in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs? America's Debate Over Technological Unemployment, 1929-1981 and coauthor of the recently released The Future Is Now: Science and Technology Policy in America since 1950. Part of the Women's History Month Celebration and Iowa State's 150th Anniversary Celebration.

Hillbillies and Beachcombers: The Impact of Geography on Hunter-Gatherer Organization - Lewis R. Binford
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Lewis R. Binford, one of the most influential anthropological archaeologists of the twentieth century, is best known as the pioneer of "New Archaeology." He helped establish the field of ethnoarchaeology in the 1960s, arguing that an understanding of the archaeological record is only possible through an understanding of the process and cultural context under which it was formed. Binford has authored or edited nine books, including An Archeological Perspective, Bones: Ancient Men & Modern Myths, In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archeological Record, Working at Archeology, and, most recently, Constructing Frames of Reference. He is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Southern Methodist University.

Weapons of Mass Destruction Myths and the Defense Department Response to WMD Events - Steven Bucci
6:00 PM – Cardinal Room, Memorial Union - Steven Bucci is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense. He oversees the policy issues involving the defense domains, National Guard operational issues, Domestic Counter Terrorism, and readiness exercises. He was the Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and served through the 9/11 attack and the Global War on Terrorism. He led a team of twenty-five other colonels to Baghdad to directly assist the Coalition Provisional Authority leadership in the final six-month period leading to the transfer of sovereignty. Steven Bucci has earned the Defense Distinguished Service Medal. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in international relations. He retired from active duty in 2005.